The Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (2008)

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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is pleased to present the
2008 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR), the fourth in a series of reports on
homelessness in the United States. The reports respond to a series of Congressional
directives calling for the collection and analysis of data on homelessness. The 2008 AHAR
breaks new ground by being the first report to provide year-to-year trend information on
homelessness in the United States. The report provides the latest counts of homelessness
nationwide—including counts of individuals, persons in families, and special population
groups such as veterans and chronically homeless people. The report also covers the types of
locations where people use emergency shelter and transitional housing; where people were
just before they entered a residential program; how much time they spend in shelters over the
course of a year; and the size and use of the U.S inventory of residential programs for
homeless people. This AHAR also is the first to compare Point-in-Time estimates reported
by Continuums of Care across several years.